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Friday, January 20, 2012

Plodding a bit in reading Kahneman's book, Thinking. It's long, full of research, and well-written in a conversational style, but not always interesting to me. He nicely simplifies System 1 and System 2 thinking styles as "just" the labels chosen. They could just as well have been Max and Sam or Sue and Lou. Here are some interesting ideas gleaned from bopping around the book.

• Over confidence or unrealistic positive thinking comes from System 1, which in the lingo I use is the intuitive style of thinking. People with the optimistic explanatory style often takes full credit for success, but little blame for failure. It feels good, but can motivate unrealistic emotions and actions. The optimistic style can be trained but not eliminated. "The main benefit of optimism is resilience in the face of setbacks." It defends one's self-image.

• In contrast, self-control and self-criticism are functions of System 2. Although not the only functions, and not necessarily pessimistic, negativity rides high compared to System 1.

I'm wondering if all of us who are rational problem-solvers, closer to System 2 than System 1, can not only increase creativity by adding intuitive problem-solving to our repertoire, but we can also decrease some of the negative self-talk. And for those people who are primarily System 1 or intuitive thinkers, adding rational thinking may decrease some of the overly optimistic thinking and feeling. I haven't found this yet in Kahneman, but I'll keep looking.

If all of this is Greek, please search back in the blog for intuitive and rational problem-solving. Whether you've read the book or not, what are your experiences with the 2 models of thinking and the outcomes?

WELCOME TO IWO!

It's the beginning of the third year of intelligentwomenonly.com I've started off with some retrospective posts as a reminder to me and you that this blog started out focused on understanding and eliminating negative self-talk. Not surprising since my current book project is Handbook #l for Intelligent Women: Break the Negative Self-Talk Habit.Strong beliefs underlie intelligentwomenonly.com posts:• Research based advice/suggestions/content contain more accurate facts and greater value than pop psychology.• Intelligent girls and women are more likely than intelligent boys and men to limit themselves because of their self-talk.• Negative self-talk is a bad habit, not a neurosis or psychosis. Unfortunately, it's normal in a majority of girls and women.

•The negative self-talk habit has to be eliminated before realistic (or positive thinking) can be learned and maintained.• Positive self-talk cannot create a positive reality even if the negative self-talk habit is broken.• Self-help approaches can work for changing thinking, feeling, and behavioral habits.In the next nine months of 2012, I would love to be able to tell you that the book will be published this year or next. In the meantime I've become intrigued with new brain research about thinking and emotions, particularly applicable and useful for and to women. I'll post no more about gender differences, unless they're wildly interesting, and more about intelligent women's psychology, thinking, feelings, and out front actions. I've added a new red subject box, Writers and Writing, targeted specifically for writers, of course!

I'm still looking for some controversy, disagreement, new information from readers. I'm open to your thoughts about what you'd like to hear more about — or less about!Please send me your comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms — all of you intelligent women out there!